Killing Time

I poked about in the garden for a while today, but the beginings of rain drove me indoors again. I managed to turn over some of the second compost heap, though after struggling with the rake I now think a fork would be better and will set to when the weather improves. I did a bit of planning too, scheming about what might be best in the different areas. It's not my strongest point, design, but once things start growing again it will be easier. And I googled things like "most strongly scented roses", "prettiest peonies", and "best plants for perfume". I decided, after Lucy Boston, not to put another thing in my garden which doesn't delight the nose. I've got Shaun coming to take the hedge down by another few feet in a few weeks, because I can't bear that it blocks the very last of the evening sun. Shaun is the brother of Lee who determinedly ground out the trunk and roots of my hazel tree in a filthy gale last year, a true Superman, and a young super man too, kind and well mannered. The weather was so terrible I couldn't even get outside to bring him a cup of tea, but had to place it on the doorstep. Lee is of the same mould, handsome and skinny as a whippet. Such a pleasure to do business with men like that, and they don't charge the earth.

Harrod's hamper laundry basket

Bedroom with (invisible) laundry basket

I have a new laundry basket, and now delight in putting my dirty clothes in there instead of on the floor. It's a Harrod's Christmas food hamper complete with strong wicker and faux leather lid loudly embossed with the famous name. It was a present, and the recipient passed it on to me with a few stray contents: a Harrod's tin of spiced tea, ditto spiced coffee, spiced pear and mascarpone jam, spiced Christmas chutney. There's also a Christmas cake and a couple of Christmas puddings, no doubt spiced too. I removed these contents from the hamper before it took up its new job in my bedroom. When they will be consumed I do not know. But they will be.

It's been a long day, just beginning to darken outside now. I fell asleep mid-read on the sofa earlier, and dreamt I was sharing a house with a load of people, everyone in and out of each other's bedrooms, eating at one huge table. I don't think it was wishful thinking, but rather more a warning of how awful things could be, and an admonishment to count blessings etc. I do, oh I do. Spending a weekend without speaking to a soul apart from Shaun this morning and whoever administers the flu jab at Woodbridge Boots tomorrow may not be everyone's idea of heaven, or anyone's really, but it could be so much worse.

It's Icumen

Muddy fingers and an aching back - it can only mean one thing: a gardening day. The sirens called as soon as I got up at 7.20 this morning, but I had to wait for the frost to melt before I could respond to them. It didn't take long as the sun was hot and steady, but still I had to place my gardening gloves on the Rayburn before I could bear to put them on. Typically the pair I chose had a big hole in the thumb, but who cared? Not me. I raked up a load of weeds and wind-borne pansies from the bottom bed, and made a bundle of loose twigs that came down when the farmer lopped my hedge. Then I turned to my five newest roses and gave them a severe haircut, a hard job to do as they were putting out buds already and I had to hack the poor things off. And while I could see what I was doing without all that greenery I hoe-ed and raked the rose bed. Already I'm planning some creamy white, heavily-scented climbers to cover the garage wall. Clematises came next, and then the massively burgeoning solanum which has nearly covered a fence in just one year. It obviously likes being near the pond, and all the sun it gets.

As I worked I heard an owl's cry, and that's the third time this week I've seen or heard the barn owl. Yesterday I walked the couple of miles to Bruisyard Church, unable to stay indoors though it was chilly, and an owl swooped right past me as it quartered the field beside me. And the day before an owl flew right along my hedge, at 9 in the morning. I can't believe it has to resort to this: the fields and hedgerows must be chocka with little rodents. As I walked along the deserted lanes the ditches ran along beside me, full of water after recent rains. I crossed the River Alde by the small pedestrian bridge beside the ford, and watched the water bubble up and force its way along towards the sea. To think this river was navigable by small punt-like barges several hundred years ago. What I'd give to see them.

Yesterday, despite one massive cock-up when I failed to respond to Helen's opening bid at bridge and lost us 1394 points, we still came 4th out of 16 pairs. It wasn't really my fault. She had just told us about her neighbour, a strongly Essex lady, who she made lunch for one day. "It don't taste of sprouts 'Ellen," said the neighbour, of the pate they were eating. "What do you mean?" asked Helen. "Well, didn't you say it was Brussels pa'e?"

Total Immersion

Some people touch your heartstrings and make you love them without even trying. It's a vulnerability sometimes, an inner beauty that is natural and childlike regardless of how old they are, or how famous. Daniil Trifanov is one such, and to hear and see him play the piano at the Wigmore Hall last night was like falling in love and winning the lottery. OK, not quite the lottery as I still had to get the train home, but it was close. He's not really vulnerable, but confident and professional about his playing. But with his wonky collar and tie dangling down way past his waistband he looked like an awkward teenager as he received applause. Indeed he seemed surprised to see us all there when he stood up from his stool, so engrossed was he in the music. His playing is incredible, not showy but following a true inner direction that he hears and feels and somehow manages to convey intact to ordinary mortals. Another absolute winner from the Wigmore.

Daniil Trifanov

I went to London and came back on the wrong trains but nobody noticed and I wasn't challenged. Everybody was coughing and sneezing without putting their hands or hankies to their mouths, and I feared the worst, but so far my First Defence nasal spray seems to be offering some protection. I had a long drive back from the Essex station I'd parked at, the only way to reach home without leaving London at 9pm, but at that time in the early hours of the morning the roads were quite empty. My mind wasn't though: it was filled with the music of the night, and the memory of that incredible young man who undoubtedly has a direct line to something real and truthful that fills him with inspiration. Lucky him.

Larger Than Life

I drove back from Wickham Market after Sammy dropped me at my car in a white-out - not snow but a heavy, lethal frost. I took it carefully, especially rounding sharp bends, and was concentrating so hard that when I came across a field of startled deer I couldn't immediately identify what I was seeing. It was a large herd, probably the same one that has visited my own fields, and they were spread out across the darkness, every head turned towards me as they decided whether to stay or run. I wanted to point the headlights at them, to stare and enjoy the spectacle, but I didn't want to scare them off. After that the last mile of my journey became like a cute Disney film as hares, rabbits and owls all appeared against the snow white backdrop of fields and trees, hesitated when they saw me and then retreated. In my drive the tiny splinter of a moon offered no light, and I put the car away in pitch darkness, a black so dense I could almost feel it. But the stars were out, and in such a clear frosty sky they were spectacular.

The evening had been funny, and not just in a Ha Ha way. First we met a blocked carriageway on the way to Ipswich, endless red rear lights streaming ahead to show the extent of the blockage, police lights flashing way in front. We cursed, imagining the delicious meal we might have to miss, but then we were off, and we chose a Chinese restaurant right opposite the theatre. But when we came out the theatre was in darkness, the doors locked. Luckily someone else turned up and texted a friend to find out where the gig was, so we followed her to the Corn Exchange. Don't ask. On the way we found a man collapsed on the pavement, two young girls already trying to rouse him. We stopped to help, and were just about to call for an ambulance when he staggered to his feet, burped loudly and staggered off with us. He was nissed as a pewt, but on such a freezing night I wouldn't have fancied his chances surviving on the street. I was impressed by the girls who cared enough to stop. Seated in our complimentary seats we then waited an hour while a medical emergency delayed the start of the show. Why the paramedics, and a doctor who happened to be in the audience, didn't move the casualty outside is a mystery, so they tended to her in the auditorium while everyone hung around. Finally the show started, and then the Ha Ha's became belly laughs as we entered the crazy world of Katherine Ryan. She was worth the wait.

'Aving a Laugh

A gorgeous day, cold but with more than a hint of spring in the air, and the hares thought so too. Five of them out there this morning, two or three boxing together, and lots of racing in circles, sudden about-turns, and thrilling leaps in the air. I tried hard to capture some of their antics on my camera with the zoom out full, but keeping it steady was very hard. How come Kitty was able to take a clear photo of the moon's craters with the same camera recently, just a slightly stronger lens? It looked like a picture from a telescope.

Relaxing after their shenanigans

I just missed them both in mid-air

Back down after leaping for joy

 
My two orders from Amazon were delivered today, one a padded, weighted hoola-hoop which bears no resemblance to the ones we used to whirl around our skinny waists as children, and ther second a very thick (15mm) yoga mat. The former is to tighten my core, and if I'm honest it's because I could do it the first time I tried with very little effort and it felt great, and the latter to save my poor knees from the hard ground when we perform our antics in Great Glemham village hall.

Tonight I'm off to see Katherine Ryan on tour in Ipswich. Sammy and I are making a night of it - early dinner at Pizza Express and then hopefully a lot of belly laughs. Laugh School in The Real Marigold Hotel features a group of Jaipur denizens joining together every morning in a local park to force laughter, force it, that is, until it becomes real. It's wonderful for the health apparently, mental and physical. What with Wayne Sleep making the amazing discovery that India offered meditation, his chance at last to reach his spiritual side, it was a very inspirational episode. (Wayne, mate, they do meditation in every corner of the UK as well). I love to laugh (but my baby just loves to dance) and will do so at every opportunity from now on even when things are not funny. Except when I'm on my knees in yoga. That is no laughing matter.

On the Road Again

I sat in the car for over 7 hours at the weekend. A trip to S. London should have been conducted largely along the A12, so why did I end up in Stowmarket, miles out of my way along the A14 westbound? I know why: the signing around Ipswich is notoriously bad, and I've found myself in Felixstowe before now, the same distance in the other direction. Plus, I was listening to and repeating from an Italian tape and had switched onto autopilot. I will never again make that mistake. Later, much later, switching on my Satnav in the unfamiliar outer regions of NE London, I was directed again and again against my instructions to the M25 which I hate. And it kept telling me there was an incident on my route which had brought traffic to a standstill. Oh rolling nightmare, you didn't end until every muscle in my legs and buttocks had seized up. Going home was nearly as bad when I found myself following signs for East India Docks, the Isle of Dogs, Poplar. I felt as if I was in an episode of Call the Midwife. At the massive open junction at Tower Bridge I turned into five lanes of oncoming one-way traffic, all determined to hit me. Luckily city driving doesn't faze me. How wonderful, though, to finally turn off the main road into a lane with nary a vehicle to be seen, and eventually see my dear little house. That may sound a bit soppy, but it truly was an ordeal. Worth it though. Some things are beyond measurement.

It was no wonder then that yoga today was murder, sheer torture, as my shortened muscles screamed in defiance of what they were being made to do. It's a great antidote to the sedentary life that an office job and winter impose, but an excruciating one. It's an odd thing that every one of us in the hall found it easier to do things on the left side regardless of dominant hand. I use the word "easier" loosely here. Anyway, I'm back home safely after all my exertions including a lightening trip to the library to collect my ordered copy of The Children of Green Knowe. I like to be prepared. Gale force winds are howling outside - we might be on Kevin, or Lucrezia, or Mildred now for I all know, or still Imogen, but there seems to have been little pause in the ferocity for several days. When I woke in the night to go to the loo I could see the blue flashing light of a police car progressing along the main road, all of two miles away and normally invisible from here. It was a very spooky sight in the darkness, but quite reassuring too. I was asleep again in seconds.

Shame

You're a woman of 62 who has worked all her life as a cleaner, but a painful knee caused by osteoporous recently forced you to give up your job. You live alone in a 2-bedroom flat. When you can't work and have no other form of income you go on benefits. They are not generous, but they keep you going: Jobseeker's Allowance, Housing Benefit, and Council Tax reduction. Every week you take your "Actively looking for work" booklet, duly completed to show that you have read the ads in the local paper and outside the newsagent, and applied for some work that you might be capable of knee notwithstanding, to the Jobcentre. It is checked, approved and initialled by your "work coach", euphemism for employee. But one day a different person checks it and declares it to be inadequately completed, showing you are not seriously looking for work at all. You are likely to be sanctioned for this, and sure enough two days later you receive a letter telling you you will lose £10 a week for three weeks, a sort of punishment for being naughty. Like detention,or writing lines. This might not be the end of the world except that your housing benefit will also be stopped, and your council tax reduction. Your only recourse to justice is an appeals process which can take 28 days to complete. In the meantime you will have to borrow money to pay your weekly rent. And the Inland Revenue are chasing you for bedroom tax. "I'm 62," you sob, powerless and frustrated by your inability to manage your life." "But I can't even retire for another 3 years." So you take yourself off to the free advice agency in town where a comfortably-placed advisor listens in horror to your story. You're not a scrounger, but you're in the system now, subject to regular humiliation. She does what she can, this well-fed woman, she calls the right people and puts the case for her client. But the system works slowly, and due process has to happen. She offers to help you every step of the way, and you are grateful. You go home, distressed and worried, and the easy-living woman takes herself off to the privacy of the loo for a while and tries to prepare herself for the next one.

No Return

I made a huge mistake yesterday, and God! did I pay for it. I went to see The Revenant. I did this because I love survival stories, and this sounded like the ultimate in the genre. It started well, with lots of scenic shots and mad scrambles for safety while arrows flew all round. Next came the bear attack, so realistic and horrifying I can't imagine how they filmed it. Then it all started to unravel very quickly. Leonardo di Caprio may well get an Oscar for his part, but it will be for grunting louder than the grizzly that tossed him around like a handkerchief, and for gritting his teeth. Yes he was torn to pieces and left for dead and yet managed to find his way back to the fort AND get the man who killed his son. But he did it for well over two hours while I worried about my parking ticket not being adequate. "Hurry up," I kept hissing. I was bored, I was irritated, I ached with tiredness. My ordeal was worse than his because I couldn't escape without disturbing everyone in the row, and I couldn't quite bring myself to do that. The lauded scenic shots became samey, camera pointing up at huge sequoias every few minutes. Even I could have done that. Oh the relief when it ended three and a quarter hours after I entered the cinema. And that was another mistake. I had never been to Woodbridge cinema, but recently made the discovery that the town is the same distance from me as Aldeburgh. As this was the only place with a Monday afternoon showing I thought I'd try it. Never again. The place was heaving with retired couples revelling in their togetherness and their freedom to do this crazy thing in the middle of the day, and large noisy groups of women friends. All of that would have been bearable had the seating been OK, but the chairs were baggy and there was no tiering. No tiering! Oh Aldeburgh, what a paradise you are by comparison. And you have fish and chips.